Birds of a Feather
by Brochelle
Summary: Series of Nick and Rochelle related drabbles. Not essentially romantic.


Hunger was funny. It lingers inside you and will occasionally voice its opinion, through loud rumbles and gurgles, before falling into a state of aching submission. You'll learn to ignore it and to keep walking, keep talking. Your muscles shiver around your bones and the world seems slow to a crawl.

Eventually it becomes a sort of white noise to the constant burning of the scratches and the scrapes, to the dull-then-sharp pain of the bruises. You'll learn to ignore the shaking in your limbs and you'll learn to speed the world up by walking a little faster. In a body at war, hunger becomes a backseat driver; because at the end of the day, the body at war is still driven for the natural necessities.

Worse than the hunger is, surprisingly, the food. You can't expect the apocalypse to provide a diet that follows the food pyramid, and so the food is identical. Whatever food is presented is always the same - granola, power bars, beef jerky, maybe even a slice of not-yet-stale bread. It is disgusting to choke down, especially after seeing all that you've seen, but you never know when your next meal will be.

Sometimes, alongside the hunger, exists a sort of dimwitted, lumbering rage at the food for being identical. You'll yearn for a change, until the yearning becomes louder than the white noise. overlaying the hunger with deep, thudding notes. The temptation to throw away the granola and the power bar and the beef jerkey and the not-so-stale bread becomes nearly overwhelming.

After a while, you'll learn to accept the hunger. You'll learn to forget the whining stomach and the lurking rage and keep running.

But, lord, is it difficult.

Rochelle is laying on a ratty blanket that covers a small section of the splintered floor. It was too warm to bother wrapping up in the blanket - besides, God only knew where it had been - and she couldn't get comfortable; her arms ached from swinging the axe and her feet were sore from running all night. No; if she were to fall asleep, it would be exhaustion that took her.

Now and then her stomach took to rumbling. Initially, she had worried she would wake up Ellis or Coach because of how damn loud it was, but as the hour slid past, Rochelle accepted that if Coach's bear snores weren't waking up the kid, then nothing was.

She hadn't eaten since Whispering Oaks, and that food could hardly constitute being food even before the apocalypse: cotton candy and stale popcorn and bags of painfully salty peanuts. But even that sounded good now. The only food in the safe house was a small packet of beef jerky, and they could only make that last for so long.

Rochelle rolled onto her side so that she faced the wall. Her mind racing and in no mood to slow down, she focused on the graffiti. Quick notes to loved ones, requiems for lost ones. She traced the shape of the words and withheld a sigh.

Her stomach replied in kind with a curt grumble.

Pursing her lips, she rolled onto her back to stare at the ceiling, and folded her hands over her stomach.

There's the rustle of sleeves and the thump of something falling. Rochelle arches her neck to look at the safe house door, where Nick is keeping watch. His sniper's rifle has slid from the crook of his arm, the business end of the gun touching the floor. The man's head is lolled to the side.

He had fallen asleep.

Rochelle sits up, weighing her options before she stands up. Quietly taking the rifle, she sets it down on the floor and moves in front of Nick.

She couldn't help the smile. Here was the man who had snapped at Ellis for falling asleep in the helicopter at Whispering Oaks, looking like he'd be knocked out cold and left like a discarded doll against the wall. He would wake up soon and pretend he hadn't dozed off. That was just how he was.

Turning, she looks out the barred window in the door. A thin layer of fog carpets the loam. It cakes the world in a calm, morbid flavor, seemingly more proper in a Victorian-era painting than a shitty apocalypse. And then she's reminded of the latter when a man - no longer a man, just a mockery - stumbles through the fog. It's walking with the determination of all Infected; a determination that drives them forward to an unknowable destination.

It trips over some obstacle, then disappears into the mist.

A few more emerge out of the swamp. The morning seems to produce a mass signal to all Infected, to get them moving as one herd in some direction. It only strengthened the fact that they were no longer human. They weren't even proper zombies - they didn't eat the dead.

Did they eat at all?

Her stomach rumbled again.

The sun's rays were bleeding into the mist, burning it away and turning the remnants a light peach color. The Infected grew details - still-bleeding wounds and bruises in their ruined skin - as they turned their backs to the morning. Somewhere, a Hunter gave a guttural screech, and Nick was startled awake.

"I wasn't sleeping!" he said violently.

Rochelle looked away from the scene outside and quirked an eyebrow at him. He was adjusting his suit and searching for his rifle, but when he caught her gaze, he pursed his lips and furrowed his brow. As if he could intimidate her out of giving him a hard time for sleeping on the job.

The thought made her smile.

"Did sleeping beauty get her rest?" she teased.

He found the rifle and lifted it up. Rolling his eyes at her, he said, "That's hilarious. Should you write that down so you can remember it later?"

"Oh! Here, give me a second." She patted down her pockets and winced. "Damn. You got a pen?"

He glared at her as he moved to the door and glanced outside. The Infected were thinning out, and the swamp was alive with bugs and birds. Nick shook his head at it all, then retreated to the safety of the dim room. He went over to Ellis and kicked his boot.

"Yo. Hick. Get up."

Ellis made a weird whining noise and curled up into a ball, mumbling about "five more minutes". Nick followed up with a threat that if Ellis didn't get up, he was going to get tossed into the swamp faster than he could spit.

Coach awoke at the commotion and shouted at Nick to allow him five more minutes of shut-eye, or the suit was going to find getting tossed into the swamp faster than he could spit.

Nick looked exasperated as he cast a look over his shoulder at her.

She shrugged and ignored her stomach as it rumbled.

* * *

Nick knew many men who gambled to exercise intellect. They spent hours practicing under a flickering bulb, staring at guides and employing family members to run against. For those men, poker was a game of war. It was full of tactics and attacks; offensive and defensive.

In his opinion, these men were missing the point of poker.

He was a man of luck. Ironic, since he didn't believe in luck - only hard work and a way with words got you anywhere - but nonetheless, Lady Fortune was a good friend. To him, plotting out a poker game took all the fun out of it. To him, you had to dive right in to experience the adrenaline rush that accompanies a game of chance. So he would pick a card room at random, wear his best shoes, and sit down. Let Lady Fortune figure out the rest.

At the end of the day, he considered himself a pretty good poker player.

That didn't mean he didn't get his face bashed in from time to time. Once, after getting caught cheating, Nick had both his kneecaps broken with a two by four. Another time, he was flirting with one of the women that loitered around the bar - she turned out to be the manager's daughter. It was only because of a good Samaritan that they were able to get to the hospital in time to reattach his middle finger.

Ah, but that was all part of the game. Taking risks and living to tell the tale was his specialty. Playing poker - and escaping the consequences - was a practice that Nick held close to his heart. He could lie his way through any given situation, and if that given situation required it, he could always run faster and punch harder than the next guy. It was what he did best.

But at the end of the day, Nick gambled to exercise control.

And up until last week, he hadn't needed to worry about any other circumstance he couldn't lie his way out of.

What became inexplicably clear was that no one, not even Nick, could con an apocalypse.

There were times when shit hit the fan faster than it usually did. He was always more surprised than he should be when it happened; especially given the crew of trigger-happy fools he was saddled with. Ellis would be pounced by one of those growling, jumping zombies, get a few scrapes on his chest, and Nick would snap at him. Rochelle would get grabbed by a Charger, pounded into the dirt a few times, and Nick would be scolding her as he helped her to her feet. These moments were a breach in his control; he hated them. He loathed the loss of control, the sudden helplessness that had him grasping at luck like a drowning man for drift wood. And so he shouted and cursed and complained, to cover up the unexpected terror.

Frequently in their journey had Nick lost all hope of control. When their saviors got the munchies, rescues became just another fight for survival. A teammate might be dragged away from the group just as a horde struck. Sometimes nature just got a kick out of pissing him off, so it would rain for hours and hours until they were swimming in it. But he had learned to move with misfortune. Continue running when the mud sucked your shoes in; keep fighting when your gun runs dry and your knuckles bleed. They couldn't afford to wait around for luck.

So they had made it. They had fought and won, and now they faced the final stretch. Wrecked cars and debris littered the concrete strip across the water - potential threats if a Tank were to take a hankering to throwing them around - and jets screamed overhead. Everything was a cacophony of emotionless noise. Nothing but explosions.

This was a success. Oh, hadn't they taken a huge risk? But here they were, safe and sound in the back of a helicopter, on their way to God knows where. They were all alive.

Oh, weren't they just men and a woman of luck?

* * *

The horde was pressing in on all sides. Zombies scraped at her arms and her face, pulling at her hair and tearing her skin. She was screaming - was it her screaming? The gun rattled off in her hands and lit up the faces of the infected in polaroid flashes.

Her limbs were weak. Trudging through mud and swamp water, nonstop running, and little to no food was finally taking its toll on her muscles. But she resolved to get through the horde; it would be no use to give up now.

The trigger clicked loudly. The infected screamed and her teammates screamed but she heard the gun go empty. Fresh fear flooded her senses. The sudden desire to fall back and run was all but overwhelming.

A Charger erupted from the fog, splitting the crowd like a biblical legend. And there was the telltale oohing noise - the son of a bitch was about to do what it did best.

"Shit," Rochelle managed, before the Charger's swollen hand had enveloped her waist, and carried her through the horde.

They plunged into the swamp. The Charger, sensing the danger of drowning, backpedaled violently and nearly dropped Rochelle into the murky depths. She pried at the scabby flesh of the Charger's arm but it was unresponsive - and gross.

Then, with a mighty roar, the Charger slammed her body into the swamp.

Surprised by the viciousness, Rochelle inhaled the warm water as she fell under the surface. The Charger yanked her out of the depths again and she struggled to spit out the water. The wind was knocked clean out of her - she couldn't get a decent breath. The Charger roared in frustration and shoved her into the water again.

When she was pulled away from the swamp again, she noticed how clear the early morning sky was.

And then the world was muted, swallowed whole by the opaque water. The sounds of the far-off fight was blurred with the sounds of the air escaping her mouth as she instinctively fought to rise above the water. Suddenly she was out of the water again, and sopping wet. The world was cold and chilling and her sides were going numb from the pressure of the Charger's massive hand. Rochelle was punching the knotted flesh, but she was weakened. Water was filling her lungs and her stomach and air was in short supply.

Where were the others, she wondered. Where?

She heard Ellis' clear Southern drawl before she was pushed under the surface again. Flashes of light played across the waves above her, and the Charger's grip on her torso slackened. All at once it went limp entirely - and she fell lifelessly into the waters.

They were shouting. The words were muddled, gibberish to her. Then hands grasped her ankles and the swamp let go.

"-Hey, hold on, princess. I'm here."

There was water in her ears and dribbling out of her nose and she sat up to spit it out of her lungs. The after taste was nasty. She couldn't help gagging - which turned into a dry heave that wrenched her stomach.

She forced herself to stop. Settling back on her haunches, she managed to frown at Nick as she listened to the overbearing silence.

"You need help up?" Nick said. He wasn't teasing this time around; a surprising observation that made Rochelle quirk an eyebrow.

"No," she said. Propping herself up, she made to stand on her own. Then the muscles voiced their protest and she fell back, slipping on the mud and landing on her ass.

"You sure?"

Rochelle rolled her eyes and smiled. Nodding, she extended her hand.

"Alright, but if you go down again-" He grabbed her hand and with a mighty pull she was on her feet again. "-I might not be around to help you up. You're tougher than you look."

She couldn't help a laugh. "Oh, I bet you just say that to all the zombie killing women, huh?"

"Ah ha ha ha. Clever."

They followed Ellis and Coach, stepping quickly over the corpses that littered the trail.

* * *

Was this karma? He wasn't used to that. He didn't believe in it.

The pain was real, though. And that was because of the Witch, who had just grown tired of clawing out his insides and was now mumbling to herself. She was walking away, too; moving in that sort of slow, drunken saunter, with her claws covering her wretched face.

Or was she dead already? Was that her on the ground? Did he kill her?

Maybe the Witch was karma. Maybe he shouldn't have run away from the others. Then he wouldn't have run into the Witch.

Karma was a concept Nick wasn't familiar with at all. He didn't know how it worked. But the word felt right.

He tried to say it, but his jaw and his tongue wasn't working right. It felt like his mouth was filled with chilled molasses. It filled the grooves of his teeth and pressed up against the roof of his mouth and he fought to speak through it. He spoke.

The word rolled out of his mouth like he was spitting out mulch.

Nick tried sitting up. The pain on his chest was numb; he was in shock. That wouldn't last. He wasn't sure about the karma but he knew that he'd be feeling the burn in a matter of minutes.

He shouldn't have left the others.

His heels dug into the mud, forming rifts in the grass and the loam. Turning his head, he looked in the direction of where the others were. He'd heard the plane's alarm system ringing up until the Witch's screaming was all that existed. He'd heard gunshots and a Southern drawl. Then screaming. He had hoped in that instant that it was a Witch rather than Rochelle. It had been a half-hearted thought – would it have mattered either way? In the end it might have been Rochelle but he didn't expect the Witch at all.

Why did he run?

He thought the others had been right behind him. Coach had opened the emergency door and the instant the alarms pitched a fit Nick was sprinting across the wing, making a break for a dock across the swamp. He'd hit the water running and he now realized it had been other Infected behind him, not his people. The zombies scattered when he reached the dock. Even they had heard the Witch, and run.

But it was quiet now. No plane, no guns, no Witch. Just him and karma.

Nick made as though to sit up again. He propped himself up and his limbs shuddered under him, and then the pain grew too much and he hit the back of his head on the ground. The movement seemed to have reminded his brain of the situation. His chest started to burn from the Witch's cuts, white-hot and searing.

At least it was only his chest. At least it wasn't his legs.

Anger flushed through his thoughts. Years spent avoiding emotional connection with others, and suddenly he's stuck in the middle of some sort of dysfunctional family of zombie slayers, half of which couldn't shoot worth shit. Suddenly he's taking the brunt of the zombies so the others don't have to. Suddenly he's saving aspirin and gauze pads for the others rather than himself. Years of successful living and here he is, paying for a split second decision.

He should have left back in the hotel.

But even he knew, even in this moment of blinding and darkening pain, he knew that things wouldn't have been better if he had abandoned them. He would have been dead before he could leave the city.

Who was he fooling? 'Years of succesful living'? There had been days when he couldn't even leave his home to get food, for fear of getting shot. He had gone on weeks living on beans and whatever shit had been left in the cabinets after his wife left him.

Maybe the zombie apocalypse had been the best thing for him.

Maybe that was karma too.

He didn't know.

The sky burned away at the corners as he stared up. His heart sped up as he panicked, as the blood on his chest became uncomfortably warm. This was it. He'd run away and this was karma. He was going to die because it was him who was the idiot. It wasn't trigger-happy Ellis or impatient Coach or Rochelle's goddawful aim with a shotgun. It was karma.

Blood pounded in his ears and his limbs start to tingle, going numb at his fingertips.

Saying it was karma would mean it wasn't his fault.

It wasn't his fault he ran away.

Water splashed, to his left. Nick pawed for his pistol and struggled to lift it, but his shoulder ached and he could hardly see through the pain anyway. Rolling over, he raised the pisol and aimed for his assailant.

He'd be damned if he died because of a goddamn zombie hillbilly.

"Whoa, boy. Gun down now," the zombie said.

The zombie sounded a lot like Rochelle.

A voice echoed behind her, far away. "Didja find him?" it said. Its voice dripped with a drawl that was all too familiar. And farther yet came a deeper voice, demanding that the other needed to find a safe house.

His arm gave out and the gun fell from his hand. With a huff, he rolled over again until he lay flat on the ground. His heartbeat had been reduced to a dull thud in the cavern of his chest and he tried to speak. Nothing but gurgles and nonsense and karma.

There was a hand on his shoulder, then on his back, lifting him up and resting him on something elevated. He pried his eyes open – what a trial to blink – and found his strained vision to be filled with a worried face.

"Oh no," Rochelle murmured. "Oh honey, what did you go and do?"

He couldn't be bothered to speak, so he blinked slowly.

"Ellis!" Rochelle cried. "I need your health kit, now. Anything you got!"

"Sure thing!" Ellis replied.

Nick closed his eyes.

Water splashed violently and someone gasped. Guns clattered against each other.

"Holy shit."

"I know."

"I mean. Holy shit, Rochelle."

He knew she was pursing her lips. "The health kit, Ellis. Now!"

Then the sound of gauze tape, and packets ripping open, and a bottle of pills shaking. His shirt was parted and gauze was applied to the wound. He was being lifted up somewhat, and then there was a sudden pressure across his chest as the gauze was wrapped under his suit jacket, completely around him.

"Go find Coach, Ellis."

Water sloshed.

"Can you walk, Nick? If I got you up on your feet could you walk?"

He didn't know if he had answered, but she was hefting him up. She was giving up a couple aspirin pills and after a while he could focus again, his thoughts jarred slightly by the pain and the nausea of being upright.

Rochelle put her arm around his waist and draped his arm over her shoulder. She moved forward and he stumbled with her. There was a hand on his, squeezing the bloodied flesh tightly.

He tried speaking again, but it was mere noises.

"Come on. We gotta get you somewhere safe, alright?"

Ahead of them was the safe house, the light within a blessed reward of civilization in the wild swamp. He noticed the sun coming up over the horizon and how the road ended in a massive, barbed fence.

They struggled together toward the safe house.

"Rochelle!" It was Coach, close. "You got 'im? I can take him if-"

She was hurt too, Nick realized. It was in the way she replied to Coach – words brief and tightened by pain – that made it so evident.

The safe house was so close. He could walk. He would do that.

Coach and Ellis ran ahead of them and disappeared into the light. A horde's roar rang through the swamp and Nick's chest twinged with pain.

"We thought we lost you," Rochelle managed. "We doubled back, thinking you'd been carried off by a Charger or something. Didn't hear you. Thought you were dead."

They stepped onto the porch. It was a single step but it might as well have been an attempt to climb a mountain for them; they nearly collapsed in the threshold.

"We didn't leave you, ok?" she said.

The door slammed shut and Rochelle guided him into one of the rooms, letting him fall onto the single mattress there. It was a piece of shitty furniture but it was better than the swamp. Better than karma, even.

Rochelle called for a light in the room and Ellis walked in, holding his sniper's rifle. He turned on the flashlight taped to the bottom and angled it down on him while Rochelle reached for a medical kit.

"I'm not about to let you fall, baby."

Karma was all right, Nick thought.

* * *

Though he always took the last watch, Nick rarely slept. Something about the adrenaline kept him pumped for hour, on his toes for what felt like an endless ballet. If he managed to feel so exhausted that he could sleep he would only wake up from some nightmare; some foolish nightmare where logic and proper reaction time apparently didn't exist.

Or maybe it was the growls outsides that kept him up, not the adrenaline.

He could tell when he was about to crash from the apocalypse-induced rush. His limbs shook and his gut shuddered and he was aware of things in a detached way, he was so tired. He hated those moments. He felt weakest at those moments, and he hated it. Thankfully he didn't feel that way right now - the time for that had been hours ago, a couple miles away.

The helicopter had crashed around six in the morning, mere hours after the hell that had been the Midnight Riders concert. It was a funny story, really - Nick had just been dozing off when the pilot had tripped over his outstretched legs, colliding with Coach's considerable girth. He would have laughed under any other circumstance, but given that the pilot was spitting blood and clawing for Ellis' feet, Nick had a more appropriate reaction. Shooting the pilot was the easiest part of taking control of the helicopter.

Ellis had blamed him for crashing the damn thing. The kid had blamed him for shooting the pilot, too. Worse even, Nick couldn't even manage a proper snarky reply - his limbs were shaking and his gut shuddered and he was aware that they were in the middle of nowhere, and it was night. He remembered noting that those two scenarios were often working in perfect tandem for the four of them.

After that, Nick barely had the energy to get to the first safe house. His breathing was ragged, and his blood was pumping so hard he had difficulty putting one foot in front of the other. He was so bad off that Rochelle had to practically drag him to safety, a horde at their heels.

So much for adrenaline.

The second safe house - the one he currently sat in, fiddling with the stock of his rifle - was in a tiny town at the edge of a massive, smelly swamp, a mile or two from the first safe house in the drainage ditch. The walls were cracked and covered in notes from survivors. Some were memorials to fallen friends and family, others were condemnation of others' actions. There was even the occasional crude drawing. The house itself had two rooms. One was apparently the kitchen, dining room, living room, and bathroom area. The other room was even smaller and included a single queen-sized mattress. Coach's snores rose from the depths of the second room, and somewhere on the floor near the bookshelf in the first room came the sound of Ellis' muffled snores.

The whole place smelled like a horse's ass.

A small table held the group's supplies, from guns to spare ammo, even a couple medical kits left by other visitors. Next to the table was the only exit that wasn't closed off. It was made of metal, painted red, and held shut with a single thick metal pipe. The door had a small window cut into it, small enough for them to look through but not so big that something could claw its way in.

Leaning against the door was Rochelle.

She was holding a hunting rifle nonchalantly, hinting that there had been little to no trouble since they'd arrived at the house. Outside, the sun was beginning to rise over the thick foliage, and the little light that existed made her plain features nearly glow. She seemed distracted.

That's when Nick heard it.

Incredibly faint music played at the edge of his hearing, mingling with the swamp noise and the zombies outside. So faint he couldn't discern the tune, even - just the occasional loud note. But it was music, he knew that much.

He stared at Rochelle and realized she had earbuds on.

His first instinct was to get up and ask her about it. They'd been on the run for a couple days, running through rain, mud, fire, and blood, and here she was listening to music. Like this was normal, like this was her job, sniping zombies through the swamp fog.

The faint music continued.

Where did she find the earbuds and the music player? Why hadn't he noticed it before?

What did she listen to?

Temptation proved too much. Nick pushed himself off the ground, winced at the pain in his aching muscles, and approached Rochelle. She glanced at him - not surprised, just bored, it seemed - and offered a small smile. On reflex he returned it.

Leaning against the table, Nick watched as Rochelle glanced out the window again. He followed her gaze.

What remained of the town's population wandered around listlessly, bumping into garbage or trees. A pair of the Infected were fighting by the truck that had broken the town's defensive wall. Every once in a while, one of them would sit down on the ground, as if they were giving up.

A male wandered up to the door and proceeded to vomit blood on the porch.

Nick saw Rochelle stifle her laugh as he turned away to gag.

After a few minutes of people watching, Rochelle put her gun down and started to take out the earbuds. She tucked them away into her right pocket. Then she picked up her rifle again and continued to stare out the window.

She looked so tired.

Outside, a Hunter howled, its wretched sound echoing through the cypress.

"I could hear your music," Nick said quietly. He stuck his hands in his pants' pockets and looked to Rochelle. "By the way."

The corner of her lip quirked in a ghost smile. "Did it wake you up?" she asked.

"No. What was it?"

Grinning, Rochelle gestured at her shirt. "Want to guess?"

Nick rolled his eyes.

"I figured you were wearing that 'cause you liked the color," he said sarcastically. He was careful to make his tone joking enough that Rochelle wouldn't sock him in the shoulder.

She just pursed her lips and pretending to kick him.

"Uh huh, right."

"You never know!" Nick said, jokingly defensive. He twisted away to avoid the kick. It was an exaggerate gesture, and they both knew it.

"Well, it was Depeche Mode. I do like them, I'm not a poser."

"They any good?"

Rochelle scoffed. "Maybe it would be smarter to ask someone who doesn't like Depeche Mode. They're great. But maybe it's just for nostalgia's sake that I like them, I don't know. It doesn't matter anyway."

The way she capped off the sentence dimmed his smile. "Why?"

"Battery's dying. Got maybe an hour left in it." She sighed, shaking her head. She examined the gun's scope, rubbing her thumb over the glass. "Last music in the world. Isn't that weird to consider?"

Nick had never been a music person. He never really had the time to sit about and grow dedication toward a certain band. He was all about moving, walking, talking, winning.

As he stared at Rochelle, he grew more upset then he thought he could. There seemed to be two kinds of people in the world: the ones who listened and thought, or the ones who moved and talked. The world was different now. There was only time for a certain kind of person in this world, and Rochelle was not that kind.

He didn't like the apocalypse. No one did - except maybe Ellis, and in which case he could hardly count as a sane human being anyway. But he was smart. Shoot first, ask later, a concept that had saved their lives back at the helicopter.

Keep moving forward.

And don't make friends.

Maybe he'd fucked up on that last part.

When he broke it down to simple pieces, this was his world. This was a world that he could prosper in. This was not Rochelle's world.

Part of him hoped that some day it might be Rochelle's world again.

Nick bit his lip.

"Coach wants us moving out when the sun's above the trees. Give or take, that's about an hour from now. You should listen to your music."

Maybe it was people like Rochelle who would change the world again. Maybe people like Rochelle could bring music back.

She smiled warmly at him and Nick smiled back.

She put her gun down and grabbed the earbuds from her pocket. She put one into her ear, then offered the other one to him, and they sat down on the grimy tiled floor.

He learned he didn't really like Depeche Mode. It was pleasant enough to listen to, and it was an almost heavenly change from the screams and the shouts of the world beyond the door, but it wasn't in his tastes.

He watched the dust motes churn in the ray of sunlight that bled through the red door's window and felt a hand fall on his palm.

A few minutes later, Coach stopped snoring, and the music fell silent.


End file.
